The key to reducing the cost of energy storage is to solve the problems of safety and cycle life of energy storage batteries. Lai Xiaokang, a senior engineer at the Institute of Electrical Engineering and New Materials of China Electric Power Research Institute, pointed out that the breakthrough of these technologies is the prerequisite for the industrialization of energy storage, but the maturity of battery technology may take many years, and pessimistically, it may exceed ten years.
Whether the lithium battery technology used in the Zhangbei demonstration project can represent the future development direction of energy storage technology is still controversial. Yang Yusheng, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, believes that although lithium-ion batteries have the advantages of high specific energy, high specific power, high energy conversion efficiency, and long cycle life, the current price of this technology is relatively high, and more importantly, the safety is still poor, while Safety is the most important thing for power system. He introduced that the lithium-ion battery pack of China Southern Power Grid's energy storage demonstration project had smoked 22 times.
There are many types of energy storage battery technologies. According to incomplete statistics, energy storage has 12 different technical routes according to the needs of different fields. It is understood that in addition to the 14MW lithium-ion battery technology used in Zhangbei's 20MW energy storage demonstration project, there is also a 2MW flow battery system, and the remaining 4MW energy storage will use which battery technology, and the State Grid has not yet made a conclusion . It is reported that 4MW of energy storage was originally reserved for Japan's sodium-sulfur battery technology, which accounts for more than 65% of global energy storage application projects. However, according to Yang Yusheng, although sodium-sulfur batteries have the advantages of high specific energy, high conversion rate, and long life, they are not safe. Japanese energy storage power stations using sodium-sulfur battery technology caught fire twice in 2011. "It is not the key to which energy storage technology to adopt." Lai Xiaokang believes that Zhangbei's energy storage demonstration project aims to provide energy storage companies with a future development direction, that is, high safety and long life.
At present, there are not many energy storage-related companies in China. Energy storage-related companies include various battery manufacturers, control inverter manufacturers, application solution providers, and engineering implementation companies. Currently, lead-acid battery manufacturers, lithium battery manufacturers, control Inverter manufacturers and some key material manufacturers are relatively mature, and other energy storage technologies have not yet formed a scale.
Due to the lack of core raw material research and development technology, domestic battery companies are mainly in the stage of processing incoming materials. According to industry insiders who are engaged in lithium batteries, due to the lack of scale in domestic energy storage, domestic battery companies cannot form bargaining power when purchasing upstream raw materials.
Therefore, the price of core battery raw materials is much higher than that of foreign counterparts. In the end, they can only purchase localized parts. Reduce the price of energy storage systems.
Lai Xiaokang believes that most domestic battery companies start from OEM production, and even if the scale of energy storage increases, it will be difficult to really benefit. To open up downstream space and increase bargaining power, it is necessary to increase R&D investment in the direction of high safety, long life, and low cost, rather than building more product lines. At present, the global energy storage industry has just started, and it is not too late for domestic enterprises to intervene at this stage.
